Suspect Charged In Slayings That Shook City 39 Years Ago

Kenneth Hansen Was A 22-year-old Horseman In 1955. Now He's 61-and Held In Boys' Killings.

On a rainy October evening in 1955, a strong, 22-year-old horseman picked up three boys hitchhiking on Chicago's Northwest Side, drove them to a nearby stable and murdered them, according to police.

On Friday, police charged a gray-haired, 61-year-old man for that crime, saying they had solved a horrifying mystery that has persisted for four decades.

For all that time, authorities say, horseman and stable owner Kenneth Hansen has lived with an unimaginable secret: It was he who killed the boys.

The three boys-Robert Peterson, 14, and brothers John and Anton Schuessler Jr., ages 13 and 11-were killed in a time when streets were considered a safe place for children to play and explore.

Hansen was arrested in a time when nobody would dare think the streets were safe.

And, police say, he is partly responsible for that.

On Friday, police said Hansen had picked up the boys as they hitchhiked home from a carefree day roaming the city, going to a movie and two bowling alleys. He drove them to a stable, sexually abused them, then strangled them and later dumped their bodies in a forest preserve ditch, police said.

In 1955, the discovery of three boys' bodies in a ditch had no precedent. There had been little warning that the world could be that way.

Despite a massive police investigation that included questioning of 43,740 people-including Hansen-no one was charged.

Hansen went on with his life. He married and had two sons, whom he raised while operating a riding stable, called Camelot, near Tinley Park.

On Thursday, Chicago police and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrested Hansen at his home in Country Club Hills.

The arrest was just another spectacular development arising from an investigation initiated five years ago by ATF into the 1977 disappearance of Helen Vorhees Brach, the multimillionaire heiress to the Brach Candy fortune.

In July, police charged former stable owner Richard Bailey, an acquaintance of Hansen's, with soliciting Brach's murder. They also charged 23 people for various schemes to kill expensive horses to collect insurance payments.

Just as they did in the Bailey case, authorities refused to reveal what hard evidence they have against Hansen.

Sources said, however, that the evidence against Hansen came from people who somehow learned of the crime over the years.

"After 40 years go by, you don't solve a case by physical evidence," Cook County State's Atty. Jack O'Malley said at a press conference announcing the charges.

Hansen was arrested Thursday on a warrant charging him with arson for a 1970 fire that destroyed a competitor's business, Forest View Stables, 5300 W. 167th St., in what is now Tinley Park.

The fire also killed 36 horses, and would likely have killed more had police not run into the flaming building three times to rescue the animals.

On Friday, the Cook County state's attorney's office approved murder charges against Hansen for three counts of murder in the Peterson-Schuessler case. If convicted, however, Hansen would not be eligible for the death penalty because Illinois had no provision for it when the crimes were committed.

Police believe that on Oct. 16, 1955, Hansen picked the boys up as they hitchhiked on Milwaukee Avenue south of Lawrence Avenue. He lived nearby at the time, in the 5000 block of North Claremont Avenue.

Hansen then drove the boys to Idle Hour Stables, 8600 Higgins Rd. on the city's Northwest Side, where he either worked or frequently visited. Once there, he tried to pay the boys to perform a sex act, sources said.

When they refused, he became violent and murdered the boys, according to the sources.

After the boys' bodies were discovered, witnesses told police they saw a car pick up the three boys.

One witness said she believed the car was a Packard, and police soon had questioned 970 Packard owners. Sources said investigators have recently determined that Hansen owned a Chevrolet at the time.

The Schuessler boys' father, Anton Sr., died of a heart attack a month after the murders. Their mother, Eleanor, remarried, to Valentine "Bud" Kujawa.

On her dresser, she always kept a photograph of the boys and one bronzed baby shoe of each. She died in 1986 and was buried beside her boys in a River Grove cemetery.

Her stepson, Gary Kujawa, a telephone repairman, said she was often reminded of the murders. Occasionally, investigators came to show her clothing that they believed might have belonged to the boys.

"If this was the person, and they could prove it 100 percent, she would be really joyful," Kujawa said after hearing of Hansen's arrest. "She still would like to know why he did it. She couldn't understand why anybody would want to do that to some young kids like that."

Robert Peterson's parents still live in the Chicago area, but could not be reached for comment.

O'Malley said authorities were not alleging any involvement by horseman Silas Jayne in the killings or the disposal of the bodies. At the time, Jayne owned Idle Hour Stable.